Commonplace Collection: The Void Space One-Act Play Title: The Void Space Characters A: A man waking up in a dark room. Setting The two men are in the small, dark room. Z is sitting on the floor, while A is beginning to wake up. The play begins in complete darkness, with light gradually increasing. The smell of beeswax emerges, and the sound of rain is A: It’s still dark. About the Author Georgia Xanthopoulou is an Athens-based playwright and poet. With a background in English Literature, postgraduate studies in Ethics and PhD in Philosophy from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, she delves into questions of identity and meaning. Her writings reflect themes rooted in existentialism and the Theatre of the Absurd. Her work has appeared in English‑language literary magazines and bilingual art publications.
Z: A man already in the dark room, with the ability to stare at bright spots on the wall.
Voice: A voice emanating from the wall.
A dark room with no visible doors, pulsating walls, and a voice emanating from the wall.
heard.
A tosses and turns.
Z: You are waiting in vain.
A: You’re such a vivid dream!
Z: As vivid as you.
A: I’ve never slept so deeply.
Z: Maybe it’s time to get up.
A: You keep talking. Where am I, by the way?
Z doesn’t reply.
A: Now you are silent. I am asking you -where am I?
Z: Big question.
A: Is it just the two of us here?
Z: Yes.
A: I’m still sleepy.
Z: No one’s stopping you from sleeping.
A: Aren’t you sleepy?
Z: I’ve slept a lot in my life.
A: When did I get here?
Z: I don’t know.
A: Can we turn on a light?
Z: There is no light in here. But before you rush into despair, let me tell you, you’ll get used to it.
A: Inexplicably cheerful! How am I supposed to live without light?
Z: You’ll train your eyes. Soon you’ll be able to see in the dark.
A: Is there something here I can practice with?
Z: Yes.
A: So, can you see something?
Z: Many things.
A: I can’t see a thing.
Z: It’s too early for you.
A: How long have you been here?
Z: Time doesn’t exist here.
A: How did you end up here?
Z: I don’t know.
A: Do you know how I got here?
Z: I woke up and saw you sleeping.
A: Could we be dead, above the clouds?
Z: I’d say deep underground.
A: Why do you say that?
Z: Touch the wall. It feels more solid than gaseous, doesn’t it?
A: Who built this room?
Z: I don’t know.
A: Who do you think built it?
Z: I don’t know.
A: I feel like I hear his words in my head: We are going to build a dark room and teach them to be afraid of it. But you and I won’t fear it because we know what darkness is made of. Whoever said that, he built it.
Z: I don’t fear it.
A: Do you know what darkness is made of?
Silence
Z: Do you have memories?
A: I don’t know. I slept deeply. You?
Z: I have some. Not many.
A: Tell me one.
Z: I remember looking at my void space and at others’. I remember standing over mine, filling it with laughter and tears, winters and summers, sunsets and dawns. It all fit, and even for some moments, I had the illusion that this black hole that consumed everything and transformed it into deep reflection and stoic calm, ceased to exist. Do you remember how you filled your void space?
A: It never fills.
Z: Never. Do you remember your name?
A: No. You?
Z: Would you like to have one?
A: Yes, I’ ll think a nice one… Emmanuel or Epaminondas? A name should
mean something.
Z: A name means nothing. We give it meaning.
A: And if someone has no name, like me, who hasn’t decided yet? What is
he? Is he an insignificant nobody?
Z: He is free.
A: What’s yours?
Z: I chose not to have one.
A: Here, nameless, are we more free or insignificant?
Z: I am free.
A: I think I’m starting to see better. I can make out your shape.
Z: You see.. I told you. Don’t rush to despair.
A: Somewhere else, bathed in the sunlight, surrounded by named people, modern homes, malls, and electricity, I must have been an important and great man with a multi-syllabic name. Perhaps Socrates, Alexander or Emaminondas. Surely, I left something significant and memorable behind.
Z: And it’s so significant that you can’t even remember it – nor your memorable work or your polysyllabic name. Let me laugh. Look at your hands.
A: What’s wrong with my hands?
Z: They don’t look like the hands of someone who’s toiled in life.
Silence
Z: Why must a name be long to be important?
A: The more effort you put in addressing someone, the greater your expectations of them. And if you have expectations… you know… it works like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Silence
A: What’s happening here?
Z: You’ll see for yourself.
A: Nothing’s happening.
Z: Nothing?
A: Are we even alive?
Z: Are we?
A: Experiencing.
Z: Experiencing?
A: Shhh… I heard something. Someone’s coming.
Z: No one’s coming. We’re utterly alone. Don’t expect help. There’s nothing
here.
A: Logic?
Z: There’s no logic here.
A: Logic exists everywhere, as long as you can understand it.
Z: Really? Is there no mystery in your world?
A: Nothing I can’t explain.
Z: Want me to tell you a mystery about this room?
A: I’m all ears.
Z: Touch the wall, and you’ll hear a woman’s voice.
A touches the wall.
A: Let’s see.. Solid surface, with folds and curves. You’re pulsating, as if breathing. Do you have something to tell me?
Voice: Stop seeking the answers outside yourself. Between your questions and your silence, toil there, bend, and search.
Z: See? It speaks. And I agree the wall is pulsating.
Silence
A: What will we do?
Z: Find a purpose.
A: I want to understand why I’m here.
Z: Good.
A: What’s your purpose?
Z doesn’t answer.
A: What are you doing?
Z: Reflecting, re-reflecting, and trying to read the bright spots.
A: The bright spots?
Z: The bright spots.
A: Are they like those tiny glowing spots you see when you rub your eyes for
too long?
Z: They’re little cracks of light.
A: I’ll try too.
Z: It’s not easy. I struggled a lot to achieve it.
A watches Z “reading” the spots but fails to see them himself.
A: Your mind creates them, right?
Z: What difference does it make?
A: Tell me what you see so I can try to see it too.
Z: It’s pointless. Everyone sees what they carry inside them. It’s too early for you to see.
Z stops ‘reading’ the spots.
A: They hover in the air. You’ll see them open pathways you can walk. There, you’ll encounter images only you can see and understand.
A tries but fails to see any white spots.
A frustrated: I must get out of here. I need to find a way back to the previous reality where the sun rose and set, and I chased time in between. There must be an exit. What do you think?
A touches the wall. The Voice speaks.
Voice: There is no escape. You alone have forged your way out.
A: Damn it.
Z: You can’t leave. Accept it, but don’t despair.
Silence
A: I must remember who I am.
Z: You will.
A: I must remember now. I must have been someone important.
Z: Important to whom?
A: Stop interrupting me. I must have been an important man, with a happy family, a beautiful wife, and a son who would grow up wanting to be like me.
Z: I see.
A: I must… I must… I can’t think.
Z: It’s all fictitious, what you’re doing. You don’t want to remember.
A: Oh, and what do I want to do?
Z: You want to construct the identity of the person you wish you had been.
A: That’s my business. Why don’t you leave me alone?
Z: I am trying to help. Don’t bring lies here – they can’t survive.
A accidentally touches the wall.
Voice: Help is an illusion. You must find your own way to exist.
A: Alone, alone, alone – alone in the middle of nowhere, without a name or identity, in a dark room, with a man who punctuates everything I say and replaces it with question marks, and a voice trapped inside a pulsing wall.
Z: I told you, logic isn’t enough. Are you seeing any better?
A: You’re ridiculous. You sit here wasting the non-existent time, staring at the ceiling in this filthy place where you don’t even know where you are. And you think you’re ‘reading’ bright spots.
Z: I’ve seen the world collapse and be reborn too many times, so no hard feelings. By the way, you’re the ridiculous one, thinking you have an answer for everything. And worse, you base your identity on the expectations of others.
A: Ha! Do you think that there are choices that don’t rely on illusion? Everything is an illusion, and I’m certain I was an exceptionally important man!
Z: And what’s the source of this certainty – or, should I say, this illusion?
A: It comes from within myself.
Silence
Z: I dreamed, and I watched my dreams scatter. But thankfully, there are no dreams here. Don’t talk to me for a while.
Z focuses on a bright spot flickering on the wall for a moment.
A: I can’t stand you anymore. You’re suffocating me!
Z: You’re suffocating yourself.
Z places his hand on the wall.
Z: What do you think?
Voice: The one who struggles to know themselves is like a tightrope walker – balancing precariously between serene clarity and the voracious abyss.
A: I wish things were different. I wish I were somewhere better, more open, full of light, with more pleasant company.
Z: You wish you were different. What do you think? He touches the wall again.
Voice: The outer world challenges us, the inner world reacts. From that conflict, the self is born.
A: If you keep talking, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Z: I have no intention of stopping.
A strikes Z. Z feels the pain, but suddenly A also feels the same pain. Both men are lying on the floor.
A: I was a vicious and unhappy man. But wasn’t my viciousness born of my unhappiness? Or was my unhappiness born of my viciousness? Look at my back -it stoops under the weight of my misery. My inability to accept the void space within me, that was the cause. That black hole inside me, which I never dared to face. It grew, and grew, and grew, until it became gigantic and finally devoured me. That black mantle stuck to me, and I became the black hole itself.
Z: It devours us all in the end.
A: I see a bright spot. There’s another one. And another! They’re flickering on the wall. I see them.
A and Z now both see the bright spots together.
Voice: Shhh… Now you understand on your own. Shhh… All is silence. And when silence changes form, it becomes a word. And each word carries its own weight. And the heaviest words become a cry. And the cry explodes, creating cracks in the darkness. These bright spots are nothing more than starting points of paths born from words of immense weight. But who can walk these paths, paths born from the heaviest words?
The silence is broken by the deep, rhythmic breathing of the wall. The smell of
beeswax emerges, and the sound of rain is heard again.
Z: It’s not so bad here, after all, is it?
A: I misjudged this place.
Z: In the end, we’ll see everything turn white.
A: Even the black hole?
Z: Maybe.
A: It would be a redemption.
On the wall, fragmented images from their lives, letters and numbers appear. These gradually blend into pure white light. Children’s laughter is heard. Simultaneously, the voice sings a lullaby that crescendos and decrescendos until it fades into silence. The light dims gradually until the stage is completely dark.
Curtain.
